A couple of weeks ago someone challenged me to write about the issue of Pope Francis appointing a bishop, Juan Barros, to head the diocese of Osorno, in Chile and what he said when confronted about his decision on his recent trip to Chile and Peru. I had only read a brief account of it online and heard a report about it on the radio, which was as much as I knew about it. The person making the challenge didn't seem to know that much about it because they claimed "the bishop" was the one who had been accused of "raping little boys" when that isn't what he's accused of. He's accused of knowing that a priest, Fernando Karadima, who has been convicted of child abuse by the Vatican was guilty of sexual abuse and who covered it up.
Yesterday the British Catholic Herald had a very good, long commentary about what is known to the general public about it and why the Pope needs to address this with more than the last public word he gave on it. I will say that I think, to a large extent, what he said is proof that even someone as competent and experienced as Pope Francis should be more careful about answering questions from the press in real time. He, himself, seems to realize that the way he responded, that there was no "proof" of the accusations against Barros, wasn't either just or pastorally charitable. But if he doesn't quickly give out more information as to why he decided to appoint and keep Barros in that position then this is going to get worse and destroy the credibility that he has repaired after the disastrous and immoral handling of the scandal of priests abusing children under his two predecessors.
Pope Francis first accused the victims of calumny in a heat-of-the-moment exchange with a reporter in a press gaggle at the gate of the Iquique venue where he was heading to say Mass on the last day of his recent visit to Chile. News of the Pope’s “hot takes” overshadowed the final, Peruvian leg of his South American tour. The Pope then used his in-flight press conference – days later – on the return trip to Rome, to double down on his accusations of calumny, saying he has not received any evidence of Barros’ alleged wrongdoing, and that the victims had never brought their case to him. “You [reporters], in all good will, tell me that there are victims, but I haven’t seen any, because they haven’t come forward,” Pope Francis said.
Even at the time Pope Francis made it – again, during the in-flight presser en route to Rome from Peru, days after his impromptu response had garnered the attention of the press – the assertion was, to say the very least, problematic.
The accusations against Barros have been before the public since at least 2012. Victims have given testimony to Chilean prosecutors regarding the matter. It appears, therefore, that the Pope’s assertion can save itself only if it rests on a hyper-technicality: that he had no direct, personal acquaintance with the accusations. Upon hearing the Pope’s claim, however, the abuse survivor and former member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, Marie Collins, made it known that she had delivered an 8-page letter to the Pope describing life in the Chilean institute where their abuse took place and detailing Barros’s alleged role in their abuse. The letter, Collins explained to AP, was from Juan Carlos Cruz, a victim of Karadima and Barros’s most outspoken accuser. Collins claims she delivered the letter in 2015, through the Pope’s own chief adviser on sexual abuse matters (and president of the Commission for the Protection of Minors), Cardinal Seán O’Malley of Boston.
About the letter and its delivery, Marie Collins told the Catholic Herald: “It was at the time a private letter [written in Spanish] from Juan Carlos Cruz [one of those accusing Kardima and Barros] to the Holy Father.” Collins went on to explain: “As well as I can recollect it was sealed when given to Cardinal O’Malley. It was in a simple plain envelope. I did have a general idea of its content as [Mr Cruz] had also sent a detailed explanation of events in English.” Asked specifically about Cardinal O’Malley’s confirmation of delivery, Collins told the Herald: “He said he had given the letter directly to the Holy Father and that at the same time he had discussed our concerns about Bishop Barros with him.”
The piece in the Herald gives four possible scenarios as to what led Pope Francis into making his decisions on the issue, centered around the letter,
At this point, there are four possibilities: Collins and Cruz are both lying about the letter; Cardinal O’Malley gravely misrepresented the diligence with which he discharged his promise to deliver it directly to Pope Francis (though Collins has expressed full confidence in him on several occasions); Pope Francis received the letter and did not read it; Pope Francis received it and read it, only to forget about it.
If O’Malley did not deliver the letter directly into the hands of the Pope, he needs to say so. If Pope Francis did receive the letter, only to put it aside without reading it, he needs to say so, and explain why he did not read it. If the Pope did receive it, and read it, then the only way to save him from an accusation of deliberate untruthfulness is to admit he is relying on another hyper-technicality: that he received nothing submitted specifically and explicitly as evidence in an open judicial process,
I am going to break in here because I couldn't possible disagree more that this last thing is a "hyper-technicality" it is a ground-floor, absolutely necessary standard of making a judgement as to guilt which is essential to protecting those who are falsely accused. If you think that's unimportant then you really don't care about justice. Consider the time when Cardinal Joseph Bernardin was accused and widely vilified only to have his accuser admit that what he said happened, never happened and he had been led to make the accusation through the manipulation of a "hypno-therapist." The "ritual child abuse" hysteria in the United States - fueled by such irresponsible TV propaganda as Geraldo Rivera produced - proves that any relaxation of the regular standards of testing evidence are bound to lead to other disasters and injustices. Any system for dealing with guilt and innocence that doesn't take into account the fact that there are false and mistaken accusations made for all kinds of reasons isn't going to be sustainable. Though if that is the reason for what has happened, Pope Francis needs to say so.
or that he received no new evidence – i.e. evidence about which he had no prior knowledge of any kind in any capacity – or that he received no evidence of Barros’s wrongdoing as a bishop, such as would warrant investigation and possibly trial under pertinent law.
I can think of two complicating factors to those four possibilities, Pope Francis may have other information that he thinks is more credible than that in the letter - which I haven't seen published anywhere - or that Barros may have told him things under the seal of confession, though I thing that's probably unlikely.
If the Pope has other information he should publish it, but even if it exonerates him, Barros should be asked to quit his post for the good of The People and the church and if he doesn't do that then Pope Francis should remove him. I can't see how he could be an effective pastor of people who don't trust him. If there is credible evidence that he broke the law then he should be prosecuted and sentenced, but I don't know anything about how that would be done in Chile.
Whatever led to this, the whole thing is a lot more complicated than the original reporting in the American media presented it as being. But it is a major scandal that will damage the papacy of Pope Francis, which is a disaster for the Catholic church, as has been the unacceptably slow process of reform which has led members of the Pope's own commission to deal with this quitting and critisizing the process. Whatever else is clear, the way it is being handled now, even if that's an improvement over what was done before, is not enough and it will generate more scandal and discrediting.
The issue of child abuse in the Catholic Church is a lightning rod in a way it isn't for any other institution. Holding the church up to rules and standards imposed on no other institution might not be fair but it is how things are. But that's no excuse for the church, it's certainly no reason to relax standards in this issue. I would advocate ALL INSTITUTIONS AND INDIVIDUALS be held up to the highest of standards against this. One of the most important things about this is to prevent it continuing into the future and if there's one thing that is clear, it will happen whenever adult men meet with minors in a private, intimate setting. That's as true when it's policemen, coaches, teachers, leaders of youth groups, bosses . . . who are the molesters as it is priests. Institutions should have absolute rules that discourages if not prohibits private meetings between men and children. Or adults and children. The problem of that has been around since the dawn of history. There are well over a billion Catholics in the world, if Catholicism were a country it might be the biggest one on Earth. I doubt there is any practical way for the Church to monitor the behavior of such a huge entity and there will always be sex scandals among Catholics. But that's no reason to allow the practices that gave opportunities to men who will sexually abuse children to continue, those should be found and the physical access in private that leads to such abuse should be banned. The Pope and bishops should certainly be able to impose such restrictions on the male clergy and religious who they impose so many other restrictions on, men who voluntarily accept the authority of their superiors in the hierarchy.
Confession should always be done through a tiny screen, I thought giving that practice up was a big mistake. They should cut the kissing out, altogether. From what I understand the molestation by Karadima largely involved erotic kissing. Judas betrayed Jesus through a kiss, maybe they should think hard about that.
They should also think really hard about making celibacy for the clergy optional. While child molestation is hardly unknown among married me, mandatory celibacy in the Catholic clergy is one of the reasons this problem has come about. Peter was married, it says so in the Bible, presumably some of the other apostles may have been too, Jesus didn't impose celibacy on them, why should an outdated medieval practice be retained when it has led to so many moral problems. One of the biggest factors in the cover-up by bishops and even popes has been the fact of the drastic decline in the numbers of priests. If there were a lot more priests, and the only place you're going to get them is by letting married men and, or women be priests, that pressure to overlook wrongdoing would not be there.
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